BOAT OF

 PHOTOS and FLIERS, 1980-1983

1980

 Tom DJs at 40-Watt, July 1980. A rumble ensued after he played a Cararet Voltaire track!  Mary Rockwell (Evan's mum) and TS, chilling at the Henry Grady hotel in Atlanta, summer 1980. Photo by Carol Levy.  The first (and only) Pre-Cave ad, from UGA daily 'Red and the Black.'0Nest (adj.) flier; the first proper performance. (October 30, 1980.)

Not many images extant from this period; no photos survived from the early Athens rehearsals, nor were any photographs taken at Nest (adj.)'s October 30, 1980 performance at the 40 Watt. At least none that I ever saw. Some items were lost; specifically, a sidebar mention from an NME feature on the Method Actors (written by Barney Hoskins?) in which I was quoted as admiring Sylvia Robinson and Dennis Bovell, and in which our group was mistakenly referred to as "Boat Off."

The article could be tracked down, of course; I managed to lose my copy in the trash-all aftermath of my first marriage. No matter. From these paltry images a suitable timeline may be extracted: I occasionally DJ'd (at the 40-Watt gig referenced in the above flier I was punched by an irate fratboy for spinning the "Eastern" side of Cabaret Voltaire's Three Mantras EP!), while Mike, Carol and I grew tired of the increasingly rote performances of once-interesting bands. Following a particularly dire Pylon gig in June '80 we rushed into rehearsal. 

Background: I'd seen Mike Green in The Fans in Atlanta, ca. 1976, but our first tête-à-tête was in 1977. I was working as a server at a pizza joint near the Emory University campus; one afternoon I had the pleasure of waiting on MSG and his spiritual coordinator. Mike recalls that I wore a red sweater, backwards. That sartorial spark was sufficient to ignite our first conversation. After a backyard barbeque some months later we determined that the Athens scene was dead, irrevocably fucked, and that our only alternative was to ruin the wake for everyone. Pre-Cave was born. Mike and I met Carol Levy while standing in line outside the University of Georgia cinema, and she joined the band on the spot. (She deserves the praise we've heaped on her.) Michael Stipe was a familiar from the Cobb Institute demimonde; he owned a copy of DNA's "Little Ants" single, and because of that, we invited him into the group. (Hell, he seemed a decent enough egg at the time...) Others were peripherally involved in nascent incarnations: the always amusing Mike Richmond (who would later join Love Tractor), a very attractive nursing student whose name I've long forgotten, and a capable but ultimately too conventional guitarist whose name I've also misplaced.

An early 40-Watt gig by Pre-Cave was blazoned in UGA rag The Red and Black, but for some reason failed to materialize. The Nest (adj.) incarnation was the first to appear live; our October 30th stand at the 40-Watt was well-attended, and just as quickly abandoned. (Most of the 70-odd attendees were on the street below at the conclusion of our set.) "Mikey" was Mike Stipe; Mike Green couldn't attend, so he added a "-ce pas?" to the flier. (Voila, involved!) We wanted a very PRE look, in opposition to the comparatively slick and politically neutral posters of The Side Effects, Love Tractor, and their acolytes. Thus, the felt-tipped pens and notebook paper...

1981

Boat Of flier for Night Gallery gig, July 19, 1981. Boat Of during rehearsals (in the comandeered Method Actors space), May 1981.  Tyrone's O.C. ad, June 1981. Limbo District and Boat Of shared the first of several bills...  Carol's alternate (and preferable) flier for the July 19th Night Gallery stand.

Boat Of at the Night Gallery, Athens, on September 22, 1981. Photographs by Linda Hopper (Linda performed with Oh OK, and later, Magnapop.)  Another of Linda Hopper's photos of the Of Boat crew's 9/22/81 Night Gallery hostage situation...  Boat Of, Live at Night Gallery, September 22, 1981. (Photo by Linda Hopper.)  The fourth and final (?) of Linda Hopper's live snaps of Boat Of. (Night Gallery, Athens, GA, 22 Sept 81.)

One of Carol Levy's nailpolish bottle studies.  Photo by Carol Levy.  Another nailpolish bottle study by Carol Levy. Circa '81?  CL vs. NPB, again.

TS flier for BO's stand at the Night Gallery, 21 September 81. The grinning man at top left (and smiling woman next to him) are Tom's parents. The photo was taken at a Shriner's parade in the 1960s... Silver crayon scrawl adds just the right touch of illegibility.  Dave's flier for the band's final Night Gallery stint. In 1982, the space was re-christened "Coffee Club."

Things begin to coalesce... We settled on Boat Of as a permanent working moniker. The rot was instantaneous. Audiences failed at first to flock, but later, mere handfuls!

Top row, from left: Tom's flier for the July 1981 Night Gallery performance (the $0.50 admission price was likely too exorbitant for many of Athens' notoriously skint, pop-addled scenesters); Joseph Abdu, TS, and Mike Green during rehearsals prior to the May '81 40-Watt gig (Abdu was a dubwise friend of Tom's from St. Thomas, and would likely have given certain geek'd heroes a much-needed boost of slather appeal. Alas, he opted out, having previously decided to return to the Caribbean); a Tyrone's handbill for June, 1981; Ms. Levy's flier for Boat Of's July Night Gallery performance.

Second row: the only extant live photos of Boat Of, taken by Linda Hopper (later of Magnapop) at the Night Gallery on September 22, 1981.

Third row: Carol's photographic studies for fingernail polish bottles. She stuck them into the sleeve of the Funky Four + One's "That's the Joint" 12" that she'd borrowed from TS (late summer '81). A cherished gift.

Bottom: David Gamble's flier for Boat Of's final Night Gallery performance.

(He mistakenly wrote "13"; the gig took place on the 19th. Quibble, quibble, quibble...)

The Al-Qaeda crew of the Athens Uber-Underground chill on a hellish August afternoon. Photo by Mary Rockwell, who curiously refrained from telling Osama that he looked like a fucking dork...

Ahhhh, innocence. Boat Of, Summer 1981: Tom, Sandra-Lee, Carol.

1982

Tom's flier for the January 30, 1982 gig at Coffee Club. An excerpt from the performance will likely appear on the TSSR compilation.  Another dismal Tuesday gig at 40-Watt. Our bar tab exceeded door receipts... O, stardom!  Boat Of's final Coffee Club stint, January 31, 1982. Flier by TS.  Boat Of montage from Spring 1982. (Polaroids by CL and TS.)  One of a series of Carol's charcoal sketches, ca. spring '82. 

Carol Levy, downtown Athens, March 1982. (Polaroid by TS.)

A less formal, in-house flier for Boat Of's ill-attended March '82 gig at 40-Watt. (The eagle-orbed will note that a helpful epithet was scrawled in pen at the lower right corner of the frame. Artist unknown.)  Boat Of's first (!) out-of-town foray was at TV Dinner, an Atlanta strip club/drag bar (?). One of Boat Of's two performances there was videotaped (!) by one Phinean Jones. All efforts to contact Mr. Jones have, to date, been in vain. Anyone have info?   Tom's flier for the second (and final) Boat Of appearance at Atlanta's TV Dinner...  Limbo District and Boat Of were known to promote each other's gigs; here's a nicely garish example from August 6, 1982.

Boat Of made great sounds in '82, but it's safe to say that few (very few) were listening. Always slightly dispiriting. "We became less concerned with cracking it, inasmuch as we ever could have successfully entertained such notions," Tom later opined. The result? The band embraced schizophrenia.

David was integral to the process. His nature was to disrupt disruption itself. Anyone who saw Boat Of live could testify to this. His was a reverse sort of divination, amplifying every untoward aspect of the group tenfold. Carol followed his lead gleefully. Or, just as blithely, told us all to bugger off.

She was an extraordinary player. If you were there, you knew.

Jim, Sandy, the occasional others, stabbed and smoldered through the middle. Each set seemed to spin hopelessly out of reach, beyond any hope of recovery.

Sandy Phipps, occasional Boat Of vocalist and all-around rabble-rouser, always on time with the petals. (Polaroid by TS, spring '82.)

Boat Of veered, as a matter of course. From using wildly distorted backing tracks created by weighing turntables with chunks of mortar and children's shoes to forging improvisations over fifteen-minute loops assembled from the end fades of pop standards snatched from easy listening broadcasts, the group tirelessly courted the prized 39-67 indigent and bipolar demographic. Needless to say, booking agents of the period were unmoved. Only college radio remained, and its fringe outposts at that...

Carol, David and Tom, confronting degradation from above. (Spring 1982, Athens.)

An alternate flyer for Boat Of's House of Rimbaud gig, August 6, 1982. It proved to be an exceedingly drunken (and naked-ass) performance... This was Boat Of's late '82 calling card; the gruppe plastered them over the whole of downtown Athens after losing Jim Walker (who'd left to attend law school), but the trio would soon sunder. Carol returned to her studies, and Dave and TS took the wheel. (They plowed into the culvert in no time!)

1983

Flier for the first of Boat Of's 1983 radio performances broadcast on Atlanta's WREK-FM. Note the ("AC") in the right-hand corner. Tom thus begins his ill-fated Adult Contemporary label with a series of posters. Later releases include two albums by Peach of Immortality and the Pussy Galore's "Feel Good About Your Body" EP...

 Poster for the second of Boat Of's 1983 WREK live broadcasts... (Art, as with the first in the series, by TS, who had by now clearly lost faith with both himself and humanity...)    Don Fleming's flier for Boat Of's support gigs with Velvet Monkeys in Washington, DC. The end draws near...  

In 1983, the signal began to fade. Only Tom and David remained. (Carol devoted herself to her degree; Mike Green had long since fled to Paris, and Jim Walker broke formation to attend law school.) Gigs were rather sodden, ramshackle affairs, although there were moments of undeniable ur-fuckery. Tom continued recording Boat Of "studio" tracks on the sly at various locations (usually with the help of sympathetic graveyard shift DJs) and as those efforts improved, a path out of the morass disclosed itself. Tom and CL collaborated on a session in early February that just skirted perfection... Then, in March, Carol was killed in a automobile accident....

  Carol Levy was a photography major at UGA. Pictured, a pair of self-portraits from early 1983.

Another pair of CL self-portraits from early 1983. 

Tom moved to Washington, DC in 1984, re-naming the band Peach of Immortality in Carol's honor. POI blazed a very erratic trail, glorious and ignominious in equal measure. CL might not ultimately have felt honored, but perhaps she would have been offended sufficiently to approve.

contents © 1979-2005 Boat Of